O’Reilly or O’rwell? You make the call

In true revisionist fashion, Bill O’Reilly has entered the “He Can Spin” zone.

As Salon tells it, O’Reilly was moved to near-meltdown last week by a Salon editor who appeared on his Faux News show to talk about the host’s continuing, post-mortem criticism of murdered abortionist Dr. George Tiller.

As is typically the case, O’Reilly came in loaded for bear, but Joan Walsh wouldn’t take the bait. Instead, she drove O’Reilly crazy, which isn’t much of a commute.

But when O’Reilly showed highlights of the debate on Monday, viewers were treated to a heavily-edited version that made O’Reilly look less foolish and almost sane.

Here’s the original broadcast, in two parts. Things are okay in Part 1…

But O’Reilly starts to lose it at about the 2:24 mark of Part II…

That was pretty funny.

And here’s O’Reilly’s sanitized version, which ran as part of his “Talking Points” segment on Monday…:

Make no mistake — it’s a free country and it’s O’Reilly’s show. He’s got the top-rated cable news program in America and he knows what his audience wants to see.

He can do and say what he wants.

Of course, we can, too and that’s why we get to laugh at him when he loses it.